Amongst Asia-Pacific IT workers, Indians are the most partial to communicating via e-mail, instant messaging, and video conferencing, according to a Microsoft survey.

To measure the adoption of social tools in enterprises, the software giant commissioned research firm Ipsos to interview 1,825 employees working in 32 APAC countries, including India.

Indians tend to use more social tools at work.

According to the survey, 90 percent of Indian workers use e-mail; 80 percent use instant messaging or video conferencing tools; and three quarters of respondents use team sites or intranets.

Across the board India's usage tended to be higher than most other markets, Microsoft said.

Other key findings:

External social networks, micro blogging, and internal social networks are restricted by one quarter of Indian organizations.

7 in 10 workers feel that security concerns are to blame for the restrictions, while 6 in 10 feel the restrictions are due to productivity loss. However, 71 percent of respondents feel social tools have actually helped to increase their productivity.

Likewise, 7 in 10 feel social tools have increased workplace collaboration, and that their company recognizes the value of providing social tools--more so than in most other countries.

Globally, e-mail is the most widely used social tool by employees in the IT sector, followed by team sites and intranets, video conferencing, and IM. IT professionals tend to use more social tools than employees in other industry sectors.

Financial services and government employees are most likely to say their company places restrictions on the use of social tools, likely due to the high level of regulation in those sectors.

Mahesh Sharma earned his pen licence in his homeland, where he covered the technology industry for ZDNet, SMH, Sky Business News, and The Australian--first as an FTE, and later as a freelancer. The latter fueled his passion for startups and empowered a unique perspective on entrepreneurs' passion to solve problems using technology. Armed...
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